HISTORICAL READINGS

The Historical Reading Series features some of Richmond's finest actors and directors bringing original theatrical events alive in vivacious staged readings at a fascinating variety of historically-important venues. After the performance, the director and cast are joined by a small group of respected scholars, artists and thinkers for lively and illuminating talkbacks.

ONE HUNDRED YEARS - Date TBAVirginia Museum of History and Culture

Through personal accounts from Virginian World War I soldiers, it's uncanny how they express similar sentiments. A pride in their country, a longing for home, a distaste for English tea. One Hundred Years is a story of love and war from WWI, as told through journals and letters between Sophie and Sylvester, young newlyweds from Roanoke, Virginia.

A RAVEN’S HEART - WINTER 2019

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the great American poets whose view of the world around him is expressed through his haunting writing. We often think of Poe as a master of the macabre but who was this man who existed in the shadows? What events in his life made him paint the world around him in such dark shades? What is the root of Poe’s eternal pain? ‘A Raven’s Heart’ looks to explore the man behind the myth and the heartbreaks he lived through that lead to his beautiful writing, connecting his humble beginnings here in Richmond to the master poet he would eventually become.

UNDER THE VEIL - SPRING 2019

In the wake of the bloodiest day of the Civil War, news of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation reaches the Capital of the Confederacy. A pair of Richmond women latch onto this ray of hope. Both want to see their country reunited and slavery abolished. And yet, one woman was once the property of the other. Will Elizabeth Van Lew and Mary Elizabeth Boswer subvert the Confederate government from within the city limits? Or will their risk-taking lead to exile, imprisonment, or even execution? When an unexpected visitor arrive, these two women find themselves at a crossroads of national consequence.